Courtney Howard

The sleek production design, symphonic score and performances from a killer ensemble act as a life preserver, making the shenanigans at sea a little less choppy.

Its subversive spirit, female-forward smarts and sweet sentimentality remix the formulaic and festive, making all things merry and bright.

Playing like an amalgam of Monsters, Inc. and Inception, this family-friendly fantasy thankfully doesn’t put audiences to sleep, but neither does it draw us into its dreamy sensation.

It delivers a few refreshing details by giving the heroine more agency in her quest to find happiness — yet not quite enough to justify its interminable run time.

While a gentle, light-hearted romp is indeed welcomed in these taxing times, there’s much left to be desired from our journey with these likable but under-developed characters.

This melodrama, released to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Month, lacks the necessary polish to elevate not just its message, but also the actors’ performances.

What should be a tender, feminist-minded story centered on a young woman rediscovering her dormant childhood dreamer turns into a middling melodrama about being with a cute guy in desperate need of her rescue.

Director Michael Showalter’s yuletide anthem for unheralded matriarchs fumbles severely, delivering bland comedic hijinks, insufferable characters and generic conundrums.

While the filmmakers have crafted compelling characters and conundrums, they unfortunately fail to give them better connective tissue and a satisfying third act.

Without a visionary director at the helm to make better use of its simplistic concept and with no infusion of camp to match its zanier facets, Atlas is a shrug.

While it’s possible to make the formulaic and familiar resound fantastically, that concept has evaded these filmmakers here. Neither bland regurgitation nor innovative retelling, the remake falls somewhere in between, suffering greatly by not establishing a more distinctive identity.

Takes expected genre trappings and infuses them with unexpected delights, creating an enlightened, enchanting and entertaining feature.

The filmmakers frustratingly fail to dig into the familiar territory they’re traversing. What should serve as a warm welcome for Mouly Surya (helming her first English-language picture) and a kick-ass welcome back to lead roles for star Jessica Alba turns into a congealed mess of squandered potential.

Overall, Poms isn’t a film that demands the audience’s attention — and that’s a shame given the breadth of skilled, seasoned talent involved. The blueprint for a genuinely inspired, warm-hearted dramedy is indeed there, it’s just that the filmmakers can’t figure out how to properly utilize what they have.

This threequel is surprisingly lifeless and almost laugh-less.

Its candy-floss-lite sentiments and strong lead performances carry the picture beyond the genre’s limitations. That said, it lacks a sense of uniqueness to set it apart from other female-centric book-to-screen adaptations.

Lacking spine-tingling dread, taut tension, and the deservingly provocative ending needed to make its modern sentiments land, this re-imagining is less than a classic.

Though the narrative tends to be a touch too simplistic for most grown-ups, and lacks enough riotous dog action for the little ones, there’s enough bite to make things worthwhile for those who just want to enjoy a sweet, wholesome dog movie.

These filmmakers have trouble finessing their shenanigan-laced setups into anything but frequently frustrating, unsatisfactory conclusions. This title urges us to choose love, but audiences should choose to not play along.

Lambert and screenwriters Todd Calgi Gallicano and Charles Shyer turn in a multi-faceted tale that blessedly never devolves into a one-dimensional story about two competitive, smart women sniping at each other while their clueless families watch from the sidelines.

Not only does the story flail trying to find its footing after a well-presented first act, some of the more cost-conscious aspects detract from the picture’s meaningful, understated sentiments.

What should be a plucky, whip-smart character-driven actioner about an elderly assassin fighting career obsolescence morphs into a dusty, no-stakes patchwork of clichés that shrugs off any resonance, let alone entertainment value.

Littered with confounding clichés and hokey devices, director/co-writer Andy Tennant’s feature is the exact inverse of what a passionate romance should aspire to be, let alone one preaching the power of positivity.

Improperly developed, poorly executed and containing no indelible music numbers for us to tap our toes to, this “La La Land”-wannabe take on the Bard’s story serves to frustrate and bore.

For a property that not only held unlimited potential for sequels galore, but also spin-offs (an all-female Expendables was briefly bandied about), it’s disheartening to see it face such creative bankruptcy. That’s not to say that, in the future, the right marriage of innovative directors and screenwriters can’t revive this flailing corpse and return it to its former glory. Unfortunately, recruiting those miracle workers seems more difficult than any mission any Expendable ever faced.

While there are certain shots that provoke an emotional pull, whether that be fear, sadness or wonderment, there’s a synthetic quality to them. It leaves us yearning for a full immersion into this world of make-believe. Environments lack depth and dimension, coming across flat and uninteresting.

The filmmakers have diluted the source material, showing a clear lack of interest in making their creation just as haunting, searing and satisfying as the original product.

Steamier and sleeker than a Hallmark Channel movie, but with just as many idealized scenarios, it’s “so bad, it’s good” escapism at its finest.